IB DP Language A: Language and Literature – The Individual Oral and Global Issues Study Guide

This study guide covers the individual oral in IB Diploma Programme Language A: Language and Literature: choosing a global issue, pairing a literary and a non-literary extract, structuring what you say, and using your learner portfolio to prepare. It draws on two areas of exploration, Readers, writers and texts and Intertextuality: connecting texts, and applies at both SL and HL. It follows the current IB subject brief (first assessments for SL and HL 2021).

Once you have worked through it, test yourself with the revision notes and the practice questions. Course links: Language and Literature hub · printable checklist.

What this unit covers

Area of the course	What you must be able to do	SL/HL
Readers, writers and texts	Analyse how specific language and structural choices in each text create meaning	Both
Intertextuality: connecting texts	Compare how two different texts approach the same concern	Both
Individual oral (internal assessment)	Deliver a prepared oral response on how one literary work and one non-literary body of work approach a common global issue	Both (30% of the grade at SL, 20% at HL)
Learner portfolio	Use your own course notes and reflections to find, test and rehearse your material	Both

For the full assessment picture, see the assessment revision notes and the exam preparation guide. This page goes deeper into the oral itself, with a fresh worked example.

What the subject brief says about the oral

The subject brief describes the individual oral as a prepared oral response on the way that one literary work and one non-literary body of work studied have approached a common global issue. It is internally assessed. It carries 30% of the final grade at SL and 20% at HL.

Three phrases in that description shape everything you do:

• “Prepared” – you plan it in advance. It is not an unseen task.
• “Studied” – both texts come from your course, not from outside reading.
• “Approached a common global issue” – the oral is about how each text presents the issue, not about the issue itself. You are analysing texts, not giving a speech on current affairs.

The brief’s aims include understanding “relationships between texts” and “local and global issues”, and its assessment objectives include analysing “relationships among different texts” and the ways texts “offer perspectives on human concerns”. The oral tests exactly these skills.

The brief does not give the timing, the extract length, the rules on notes or the assessment criteria. Your teacher will share these. Plan with the official rules in front of you.

Choosing a global issue

Topic or issue?

A topic is a subject area: “work”, “technology”, “the environment”. A global issue is a problem or tension inside that area that people argue about. A topic gives you nothing to prove. An issue gives you a line of argument.

A useful test for any issue you are considering:

1. Does it matter to large numbers of people, not just one character or one advert?
2. Does it cross national borders?
3. Can you see it in ordinary, local life?
4. Do both of your texts engage with it through specific, quotable choices?

If the answer to question 4 is no, change the issue or change the pairing.

Worked example: narrowing an issue

Start broad and narrow in three steps.

Step	Wording	Problem
Topic	“Work”	Too wide to argue
Issue	“The exploitation of garment workers”	Better, but both texts must show exploitation directly
Angle	“How the demand for fast, cheap clothing hides the time and labour of the people who make it”	Specific, arguable, and each text can be read against it

The final version works because it names a mechanism (“hides”) that you can trace in language. The non-literary texts can be shown hiding the worker; the literary text can be shown revealing her.

Pairing a literary and a non-literary extract

You need one literary work and one non-literary body of work. A body of work is a group of related non-literary texts, such as several adverts from one campaign or a series of cartoons by one artist. Your teacher will confirm what counts for your class.

You then anchor the oral in a short extract from each. A strong pair:

• shows the global issue clearly in a passage short enough to analyse closely;
• is rich in choices you can name and explain (imagery, voice, structure, layout, typography);
• lets you connect the extract to the whole work or body of work;
• gives you a contrast in method, so your comparison has something to say.

The worked pair

Literary extract (Original text written for Marlbridge, from an imagined novel):

Mira counted the sleeves as they came down the line: forty an hour, three hundred and twenty a shift. The fan above her table turned so slowly that she could follow each blade with her eyes. Somewhere, she had been told, people would wear these shirts to parties. She tried to picture a party and saw only more sleeves, white and endless, falling like snow she had never touched.

Non-literary extract (Original text written for Marlbridge: three social media posts from a fictional clothing brand, Quillmoor):

Post 1: New week. New you. 900 new styles, delivered in 48 hours.

Post 2: Why wait for summer? Drop 14 lands Friday.

Post 3: Made for moments. Worn once? Worth it.

Both texts use numbers, but to opposite ends. That shared feature gives you a precise point of comparison.

Analysing each extract

The literary extract

• Numbers as labour. “forty an hour, three hundred and twenty a shift” turns clothing into a count of effort. The colon before the figures mimics the rhythm of counting.
• Slowed time. The fan turns “so slowly that she could follow each blade”. Time on the line drags, the opposite of the brand’s speed.
• Distance and hearsay. “Somewhere, she had been told” shows that Mira only knows the buyer second-hand. The people who wear the shirts are as invisible to her as she is to them.
• Closing simile. “falling like snow she had never touched” makes the product beautiful but out of reach. The work fills her imagination and blocks out any other picture.

The non-literary extract

• Verbless fragments. “New week. New you.” Short fragments create pace and urgency.
• Numbers as abundance. “900 new styles, delivered in 48 hours” presents quantity and speed as gifts to the buyer.
• Agentless phrasing. “Made for moments” has no maker. The passive participle removes the worker from the sentence.
• Question and answer. “Worn once? Worth it.” raises a doubt and answers it at once. The alliteration (worn/worth) makes throwing clothes away sound light.

Worked analytical paragraph

Both texts measure clothing in numbers, but they count from opposite ends of the supply chain. The campaign’s “900 new styles, delivered in 48 hours” turns quantity into a promise of endless novelty for the buyer, while Mira’s “forty an hour, three hundred and twenty a shift” turns the same logic into a measure of her exhaustion. The brand’s agentless “Made for moments” removes any maker from view; the novel places one maker at the centre and shows that she cannot even picture the “parties” she sews for. Read together, the texts show how speed for one person is paid for in time by another.

Notice the pattern: a claim that answers the global issue, a quotation from each text, the effect of each choice, and a sentence that joins them.

Linking to the whole work

An extract is a window, not the whole house. After analysing each extract, say briefly how it connects to the wider text. For example: “This counting recurs throughout the novel – by the final chapter Mira counts days instead of sleeves.” For the body of work: “Other posts in the campaign also open with a number.” Keep these links specific. One precise link beats three vague ones.

Structuring the oral

One workable structure is below. Adapt it to the timing your teacher gives you.

1. Introduction. Name the global issue as an angle, name both texts and give a one-sentence thesis. Preview your route.
2. Literary extract. Two or three focused points, each with a quotation and its effect, tied back to the issue.
3. Link to the whole literary work. One or two precise references beyond the extract.
4. Non-literary extract. Two or three focused points, as above.
5. Link to the whole body of work. One or two precise references.
6. Comparison and conclusion. Bring the two methods together and answer your thesis.

Some students prefer to weave the comparison through each section instead of saving it for the end. Either can work. What matters is that both texts get balanced attention and every point returns to the issue.

A model opening

“My global issue is how the demand for fast, cheap clothing hides the time and labour of the people who make it. I will look at an extract from the novel, where a garment worker counts her output, and at three posts from the Quillmoor campaign. My argument is that both texts use numbers, but the campaign uses them to make the worker disappear while the novel uses them to make her visible. I will begin with the novel.”

Signposting

Use clear verbal signposts so a listener can follow you: “My second point about the extract…”, “Turning now to the campaign…”, “Beyond this extract, the novel…”, “Setting the two side by side…”. In an oral, structure has to be heard, not seen.

Using the learner portfolio to prepare

The learner portfolio is the collection of notes, reflections and responses you build during the course. Your teacher will explain what your school requires. For the oral, make it do four jobs:

Portfolio entry	What to record	Why it helps
Issue log	After each text you study, note two or three global issues it touches, with a page reference	You can spot pairings early
Technique bank	Short quotations with the technique named and its effect written in one line	You have ready-made analysis to adapt
Pairing trials	Two or three possible pairings with a draft thesis for each	You test which pair gives the richest comparison
Rehearsal reflections	After each spoken practice, what ran long, what was vague, what to cut	Your oral improves between attempts

Start the issue log as soon as you begin a new text. By the time you choose, you should have several pairings to compare, not one guess.

Common errors

• Talking about the issue instead of the texts. Facts about the clothing industry earn nothing unless they explain a choice in the text.
• A topic, not an issue. “Work in both texts” gives you no argument to prove.
• Unbalanced treatment. Spending most of your time on the literary extract and rushing the non-literary one, or the reverse.
• Summary instead of analysis. Retelling what happens to Mira is not analysis. Naming “numbers as labour” and explaining its effect is.
• Techniques without effects. “There is a simile” is a label. Say what the simile does.
• Ignoring non-literary form. Layout, fragments, typography and imagery in adverts are choices too. Analyse them.
• Vague links to the whole work. “This happens a lot in the novel” is weaker than one named later moment.
• Reading a script aloud. A prepared oral still needs to sound spoken. Practise from brief notes.

Where to go next

• Condensed recall: revision notes
• Original questions with worked answers: practice set
• Close-reading skills: Readers, writers and texts
• Context across time and place: Time and space
• The whole course: syllabus guide and subject guide

Official syllabus

International Baccalaureate Organization, Diploma Programme Subject Brief, Language A: language and literature, first assessments for SL and HL 2021 (2019).